Tokyo Olympics 2020- HERO!

A mother and a Harvard graduate threaten Florence Griffith Joyner’s record; Simone Biles tries to cement her place as the greatest gymnast ever; Naomi Osaka returns to action after much controversy. In this Olympics, it is the women who have the spotlight on them. Here are some of the best athletes at Tokyo 2020

- Anirudh Madhavan

The year was 1896. The Olympics—a festival of virility—had returned. Men from across nations lined up to prove their athletic prowess; women, though, were made to sit this one out. “It was for their own good,” said men with twirly moustaches and inflated egos. Testosterone triumphalism was in vogue, and oestrogen could only lend polite applause. “The common wisdom held that a woman was not physiologically capable of running mile after mile; that she wouldn’t be able to bear children; that her uterus would fall out; that she might grow a moustache; that she was a man, or wanted to be one,” read 1996 The New York Times article recapping those days.

A century and a quarter later, a Jamaican lady will take to the track in her quest to become the fastest woman ever—nearly four years after having become a mother to little Zyon. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, fondly called ‘Mommy Rocket’, covered 100m in 10.63s this June in Kingston. This made her the fastest woman alive; Florence Griffith Joyner (Flo-Jo) is the fastest of all time, clocking in at 10.49s in 1988 (she died in 1998).

“Pregnancy was the last thing on my mind,” Fraser-Pryce recalled in a BBC interview. “A couple of tests later, I found out I was pregnant. I was shocked because I was thinking I had to finish track and field before I could start a family.”

Following a victorious return to the track at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, she told Olympic Channel: “Motherhood does not stop us from achieving our goals. If anything, it adds value to who we are. And knowing that we can create a human being and come back and be able to get the ball rolling and still be a tough mum was just awesome.”